Scissor Sisters will also perform at the festivalChelsea Lauren / Getty Images

Richard Morrison

Last updated at 12:01AM, July 11 2012

Claire Whitaker sums it up in seven words: “For big moments you need big
ideas,” says the co-director of the music promoter Serious. “You can worry
later about the logistics, the financing, the resources. The idea must come
first.”

Ideas don’t come bigger than the BT River of Music, the gigantic project that
Serious is masterminding over the weekend before the Olympics. Musicians
from every Olympic nation — all 205 of them — will gather on six stages, on
or near the Thames in London: mostly historic sites including the Tower of
London, Trafalgar Square and Somerset House. Each stage will be